Elgin Mental Health Center history

Need for the hospital was sufficiently urgent that the facility opened during construction in 1872, with the North wing completed by that time.

Construction soon began on the North wing of the Kirkbride type structure with the second phase beginning on July 1, 1873.

The sprawling brick structure, built in 1875 and prison-like in construction, radiates the sad and foreboding aura of a time when the mentally ill were misunderstood and mistreated.

The exhibits include one of the few existing Utica Cribs and some early patient histories, including one mis-diagnosis from 1890.

The new Annex building was opened in 1891.

Prior to 1894, many physically ill patients were denied admission to the state hospitals as being too infirm to benefit from care and were kept in local almshouses.

The name Elgin State Hospital was adopted on January 1, 1910, shortly after the administration of all state charitable institutions came under the new Board of Administration, which replaced the previous Board of State Commissioners of Public Charities and the local board of trustees.

Whether out of concern for his patients or his own handicap, Doctor H. H. Gahagan, the hospital superintendent in 1912, authorized the building of a nine-hole golf course.

Elgin received the first such building, named Wilson Cottage, which was opened in 1921.

Beginning in 1962, a series of expansions were undertaken by architect Bertrand Goldberg.

Within the next decade, many of the older buildings began to be phased out of use due to a declining population, leading to the closing of the main Center Building in 1973.

In 1975, the hospital changed its name to the present Elgin Mental Health Center.

In 1983, the Governor decided that state hospital operations would be consolidated, and closed the hospitals in Manteno and Galesburg with certain patients being transferred to Elgin.